More: No link whatsoever between vaccines and autism

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Just to clarify - I'm referring to physical therapies to help with dyspraxia, training in social skills, control over sensory overload, or distance learning etc.

I have been a hippie herbalist/acupressure/organic whatever fan. I was for many years. I still avoid (compared to most people, though I do take myself and my kid to a doctor) taking my kid to the doctor because I am skeptical about mainstream medicine and drugs. I just am not a sucker for alt med any more. I have been where you are, except I never was against vaccines. So spare me the "open your mind a bit" silliness. It does not apply to me.

What you wrote is false. It is totally false. Go read what is on quackwatch. They don't bash all "alternative" medicine just because it's alternative. Saying so is a false. There are quacks out there who are getting hit in the wallet when quackwatch exposes them and they lie. They lie just as bad as any big pharma exec lies. They are liars. They lie. So they lie about quackwatch.

http://cdn.libsyn.com/pointofinquiry/PO ... arrett.mp3

I haven't heard this yet. I was looking for another podcast interview with Barrett. He's not flaming anti-alternative medicine. He's anti abuse of consumers by way of anything. Big pharma abuses patients, alt med abuses patients. There's just very little in alt med that is really effective. There's a NIH center for research into alt med. The feds are spending big bucks checking out herbs and whether or not they actually work.

I would never recommend that anyone use homeopathy or see a homeopath because the users would be paying for water. Just water. Plain water. Not magic water, just water. And that's kind of sick, in my opinion.

I never said that vaccines are 100% effective. However, basically vaccinating everyone here in the US has wiped out rubella outbreaks. There's no "safe" place for the germ to live. When your school had the outbreak, it was likely because most of the people were not vaccinated, or not enough of them were vaccinated. You need like 80 or 90% coverage to make a germ die out.

Vaccinating 80 or 90% or more of people for some germs is an excellent idea, because it means fewer people die and fewer people are maimed by these diseases.

In my area vaccination was always seen as the done thing; even the 'autism is caused by mercury' thing never made headlines... half the town don't even think autism is a real thing, so vaccination was never a problem.


I see where you're coming from about Quackwatch, and I've not been on there in a while, but the last time I was all I saw was false rants about more or less every 'alternative' therapy in existance, saying they're all 'false/idiotic/have to be stupid to believe them/etc' which just made me think it was simply another conventional medicine goon trying to discredit anything that wasn't going to line their pharmaceutical pockets. There are plenty around as I'm sure you know.

Have you ever tried homoeopathy? I went to one the other day for a persistent flu-like viral thing I've had on and off for months. I'm only halfway through my treatment and already I feel like a cloud is lifting... my painful sinuses that have made my head feel like exploding every time I bend down have disappeared and today is the first in months that there's no pain; I'm no longer coughing and my 'asthma' (that I don't believe IS real asthma) has gone; my painful, inflamed throat is slowly feeling better; my chest isn't rattling as much... I'd recommend it to anyone, any day. I'd also recommend that they get a recommendation from someone they know first though so they go to someone good - as with anything, you get the good with the bad. Incidentally it was also the only thing that solved one of my allergies, and the only thing that ever stopped my brother's eczema (which covered 70% of his body).

For one thing, the central nervous system development which defines ASCs, it cannot be altered postnatally; it is defined within the first few weeks of prenatal life. So it's impossible for vaccines to cause autism.

However, it may be possible that if there is an immune or autoimmune component to some peoples' autism, that environmental effects, such as vaccination, may play some role in development. Not that the child would not have been autistic, but it may alter development in some manner.

The highest concordance rates for autistic traits in monozygotic twins is 92%, which is one of the highest concordance rates out there. But since it is not 100%, it is not totally genetics. But then it is LARGELY genetics because dizygotic twin pairs exhibit no more than 10% concordance. (Bailey et al., 1995)

What you are saying about monoygotic twins is false. The fact that they are not always found to be "autistic" does not direct out attention to some chemical that got inside the womb and attacked or "protected" one rather than the other. We don't know if these discordant twins are both in fact on the spectrum, but that the one is less obviously autistic and that one's autism is overlooked. The testers could be in error.

The way the brain wires up is random to some extent. One egg produces two people who are very similar in many ways, but they aren't the same person cell by cell.

There is no reason to suspect an environmental cause in some monozygotic twins where they are discordant based on what we know about environmental causes so far.

People don't realize how random brain development is. It's not like every last neuron in our brains existed on some teeensy tynsie weeenie beenie little map that is written on our DNA. To some extent the brain that comes out of the instructions is random.

Well I'm not a geneticist, but I believe monozygotic twins are only "grossly similar" in genetic scans. The chromosomes are very similar, but not 100% copies of each other. Not even in the gene structures that are considered important and not "junk DNA". I think we're also finding that so called junk DNA in many cases may have unknown functions, and are not truly "junk". Identical twins, are exact at the level used by criminologists, but not at the level used by geneticists.

Pointing out the facts and wondering about them isn't conspiracy-nuttery. It's a fact that Plum Island is a federal research lab studying infectious diseases and has a poor safety record. I believe they're now creating viruses that terrorists might create to develop vaccines in case terrorists create the same viruses and use them as biological weapons against us. It's a fact that Plum Island's dock in Old Saybrook, CT is only 4 miles from Old Lyme, CT. Some people believe birds or mosquitos transported the Bb infection that causes Lyme from the lab. Also, I think a group of people on the same street got infected at the same time and one of them worked at the lab so he could have gotten it there and spread it to his neighbors. A conspiracy would be if I said it was deliberate and referred you to the book "Lab 257 : The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory"



This isn't quackery. The http://www.lymeinducedautism.com site was started by a family in which the mother has Lyme and her children had Lyme and autism. Lyme causes arthritis in adults but neurological symptoms in children. It's possible they were all coincidentally bitten by ticks or mosquitos carrying Lyme but it's doubtful. All they are doing is raising money for research.

Here's the best I got regarding Lyme and autism: http://www.canlyme.com/autismlyme.html
I know you don't like Medical Hypothosis but it points out the scientific evidence.
If you don't like that, I give up.

I'm not talking about how similar their genes are. I'll stipulate that a discordant pair of MZ twins could have identical DNA.

Identical DNA can produce two different brains. It's randomness. It's not all preprogrammed. It's a roll of the dice to a degree. Just the way twins do not have identical fingerprints. Identical twins do not have identical brains.

And just the way that if you clone a calico cat the second cat with identical DNA will have totally different spots and not look much like it's "twin".

autism_diva wrote:

Thank you. That was the basic point I was trying to make, but I see you stated it much better. The gene's may in fact BE identical, however, the controlling factor of whether the gene was "turned on" may be completely different. If the gene is not expressed, when that stage of development is reached, then it will not have any effect on the organism.

It's a little more than that, though. If you picture neurons growing through space, and connecting to each other... how do they do that? A little man is telling them where to go? (I'm not being sarcastic with you just trying to make a point)

Is God telling the neurons how to wire up, make connections, etc? No the neurons are following a gradient of chemicals.

That is, there's a baby neuron over here at point A

and over there at point B

another cell is pumping out a growth factor chemical.

The neuron at point A says, "Dude... is that growth factor I smell?" "I think I smell it coming from over THERE. I'll grow in that direction... and wow, look! the smell is getting stronger the closer I get to point B!"

So they chase after chemicals that disperse on a gradient.

This is to some extent random. The way the neurons hook up is not entirely guided by the fact that cells are producing proteins (genes are being expressed). Even if in both twins their genes are both expressing identically you can't control how the cells actually react and grow.

It's like throwing a handful of marbles onto a tray. Can you predict EXACTLY where they will all end up? No, there's too much randomness.

this is horrible news, we have to hurry up and cure all those poor NTs

I'd be thrilled if they all stayed NT, but at least half of them learned Theory of Mind and some social skills.

I have no problem with herbal remedies, I am a fan if ginkgo myself. I just want some scientific research on them so I know I'm not taking something that is just a placebo. Also, scientific research is needed to find out what compounds in the herbs are the active ingredients, this allows chemists to synthesize those compounds artificially into a pill in order to eliminate the side effects from other compounds in the herbs.

That is true, the team could have been incorrect. However, I'd like to point out that that study in particular focused on the concordance of autistic traits, not diagnoses, so that Broader Phenotypes were included in the 92% concordance rate-- BAPs who would not fall under a labelable diagnosis. In the same study, twins which were concordant for the actual diagnoses was about 60%.

For monozygotic twins, however, except for physical placement, their environment is identical. They share the same placenta, everything. So if one twin is subjected to a substance, the other will be as well.

Diva, I'm not arguing with you: I think those parents are radically insane and take everything far too far. BUT, when it comes to science, there is support that the immune system is altered in some cases of autism and it would be poor science to assume it doesn't have some effect before it's investigated. Don't you agree?



Brain development is not random. But then it is not always specific either. However, minicolumnar development in autism is altered and this can only occur during the first few weeks of life. Because the progenitor cells which end up deciding the full number of cortical columns divide and begin to propagate during that time. In autism, there are more columns and more densely packed. This is the reason so many autistic children between ages 1-2 have an increase in head circumference, because of the myelination that is going on during that time.

Nothing is random. However, genetics does not code for the placement of each individual neuron, no. It does however code for larger system effects, such as total minicolumns; therefore, there is still some predictability to it.

But environment plays a heavy role in genetic expression. It is impossible to separate nature and nurture; they are a combined element which acts on genetic expression and methylation. The only randomness is that it's almost impossible to predict all the different variables which will inevitably play a role on development. But that's not true "randomness", that's just "complicated".

Several of them have had scientific studies done on them.